COURT ORDER TO WIKILEAKS TO REVEAL TWITTER FOLLOWERS FREAKS THOUSANDS

The whistleblower site Wikileaks tweeted yesterday that all of its 637,000 followers were a “target” of a U.S. government subpoena against Twitter. The U.S. Department of Justice said it wanted their contact info as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Twitter revealed Friday that it won a legal battle just to reveal that the DOJ was seeking details including bank account info and physical addresses. A court order was issued by the District Court of Virginia on Dec 14. Gonggrijp posted on Twitter that he had received the following email from Twitter Legal: “Dear Twitter User: We are writing to inform you that Twitter has received legal process requesting information regarding your Twitter account @rop_g. The legal process requires Twitter to produce documents related to your account. Please be advised that Twitter will respond to this request in 10 days from the date of this notice unless we receive notice from you that a motion to quash the legal process has been filed or that this matter has otherwise been resolved…Sincerely, Twitter Legal.” Meanwhile there appears to be a gaggle of second generation sites like Wikileaks including OpenLeaks, Balkanleaks, Indoleaks and Government Leaks. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is also turning up the heat again and is expected to release thousands of documents concerning a major bank, possibly The Bank of America in a mega leak. What such a leak would do to a bank’s stock is still speculation but it has sparked a lot of comment and anger.